


People Outside of Warrior's Village Sure Are Friendly!

by Mithrigil, puella_nerdii



Category: Suikoden I
Genre: Coming of Age, First Meetings, Gen, Resistance Efforts, you say you want a revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil, https://archiveofourown.org/users/puella_nerdii/pseuds/puella_nerdii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Flik got drunk and joined the Liberation Army.</p>
            </blockquote>





	People Outside of Warrior's Village Sure Are Friendly!

The kid at the bar in the blue bandanna has four empty tankards in front of him and a fifth swinging in his fist. He hasn’t slammed it down yet, but Viktor knows how these rants go, and it’s gonna be any second now.

“Damn old fogies,” the kid says, and it’s almost a snarl. His voice is broken but his hiccups aren’t. “They just -- anything’s a tradition if they like it. If they like it for them. And they beat it into you, it’s _tradition_ , tradition that you get to fight and die until we say you’re a man, unless you’re dead, and we’re just going to plot and play with your head until you’re old enough to do that part but not the fighting. Unless you’re dead. I think they think I’m dead. I didn’t come back. If I’m not dead I’m dead to them. So damn them. What was your name again?”

“Viktor.”

“Bad name,” the kid says. “No one’s a victor.”

“Heard that one before.”

“You know, I could be a victor.” Nope, the kid doesn’t slam his pint down, but he does wave with it, sharp enough that the last of the foam slops over the edge. “I have to win something. But they don’t want you to win. ‘Cause if you win, it means you’re stronger than them, and that means they’re irre -- irral -- it means they’re useless. Useless old garbage. So they don’t want you to win. They just want you to go and become a man.”

Viktor props his chin on his fist. “You don’t want to become a man?” 

Yep, that’s the sound a half-full pint makes when you slam it down on the bar. (Viktor would know.) “Not their kind of man,” the kid laughs. “Their kind of man’s just a fogey twenty years early. I’ll be my own man,” he says, nodding to himself with the kind of resolve that _only_ comes when you’re this drunk. “Maybe I am. I think I am. Am I a man, Baxter?”

“Viktor.”

“Whatever. Am I?”

“Beats me,” Viktor says, but something in the back of his head goes _click_. “But let me make sure I got this -- you don’t want the people in charge to make up the rules, you want to make ‘em up yourself.”

Well, Odessa didn’t tell him _not_ to scout for recruits. Viktor sneaks a peek at the sword dangling from the kid’s hip. The leather wrapped around its hilt has light patches from where someone’s hand wore it away, and the scabbard’s simple but well-cared for. Looks like the kid might actually be able to lift the thing.

“Yeah,” the kid says. “I mean yes. I don’t. I mean I don’t want them.” He sighs, a laugh still lingering around the edges of his mouth. “Rules have to make sense. They can’t just be old. If they’re old there’s got to be a why to the old. I mean, if they’re young there’s got to be a why too but -- I don’t know what I mean.”

“No, I think I get it,” Viktor says, and maybe he’s filling in the lines a little but it’s worth a shot. “You don’t trust leaders when they just make stuff up to serve themselves.”

“Yes!” The kid slams his pint down. The beer leaps out of it like a trout. It’s only about a quarter-full now. “Yes! That’s it. It sounded like that in my head. It just didn’t come out right.”

He might’ve slammed his pint down too hard the last time, because a group of locals in local colors is glaring at the bar, which means they might’ve heard more than a slamming pint. In Viktor’s experience, that kind of attention isn’t good for much more than starting a fight. And Odessa won’t like it if he starts a full-on bar brawl on her doorstep. Point is, the guy glaring hardest at the kid has a neck as thick as a grizzly’s and the kind of jaw that fists break on, and that’s bad news.

The kid tilts his head at Viktor like he’s about to ask if there’s something on his face. He doesn’t. He says, “Those aren’t your friends, are they.”

“Nope.”

“Are you supposed to be in this bar?”

“I’m a --” He almost says _paying customer_ , but drops the _paying_.

The kid raises his eyebrows, a little later than he probably meant to. “Is there a price on your head? I need the money.”

He hopes not, and he really wishes Grizzly Neck’s hands would stop flexing around his pint like that. “Do I look like that kind of guy?” he asks, and if the kid says _yes_ Viktor might just slug him and finish the work the beer’s already started.

“Things don’t always look how they’re supposed to,” the kid slurs. “This innkeeper poisoned me on Mount Tigerwolf. He was real friendly. I mean, before he poisoned me.”

“Well, if he wasn’t friendly, you wouldn’t’ve drunk what he poisoned.” Viktor claps him on the back, and the kid pitches headfirst into the bar. Uh-oh. Hopefully the kid doesn’t bruise easy. Viktor hauls him back up again and says, “I’m not trying to pull one over on you. Promise.”

The only answer Viktor gets from the kid is a long, drool-laden snore.

Well, what do you know.

“Hi, fellas,” Viktor says, and gives Grizzly Neck and his buddies a wave. “Excuse my friend over here, he can’t hold his liquor worth a damn.” There, he hasn’t even lied.

Grizzly Neck just glowers, and his buddies take their cue from that. Looks like no one’s interested in fighting tonight, but probably better not to leave the kid at the bar. Grizzly there looks mighty hungry.

And the kid’s a good kid. Just a little lost.

“Up you go,” Viktor says, and slings the kid over his back like a sack of potatoes. The kid grunts but doesn’t wake up or throw up, and that’s all Viktor can ask for right now. “Add it to my tab,” he tells the innkeeper, and shuts the door to the room behind him before the innkeeper’s face boils any redder.

“-- Viktor?”

“Yeah, just me,” he says. “Well, not just me, I brought a friend. How many beds did we pay for?”

“Just the two,” Odessa says, and she’s already staked hers, shoes over the footboard and everything. “I don’t know if we have enough on us for one more.”

“It’s fine, he can have mine.” He dumps the kid on the free bed. The kid groans louder this time, his eyes scrunching up, but he settles back down. “Calling it a night?”

Odessa’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “Viktor, I called it a night two hours ago.”

“Good.” He jerks his thumb towards the door. “The local colors are out tonight.”

“We really should find a more permanent base,” Odessa sighs. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“The floor.”

She nods, and hands him one of her blankets before he can tell her not to bother. “I’d ask you to pick him up again so we can tuck him in, but --”

“You got it,” he says, and hoists the kid over his back again so Odessa can turn the covers down.

This time the kid does throw up, all the way down the back of Viktor’s shirt.

Ah well, his shirts have seen worse.

***

The young man’s thrown up twice more since the first time, but hasn’t roused himself for anything other than that. Odessa’s taken the liberty of unbuckling his sword belt and removing his shoes and armor, because sleeping in those won’t improve the hangover he’s bound to develop. She sits on the edge of his bed and watches him; he snores lightly, his arm curling around his pillow for comfort, and she can’t help but smile. Viktor guessed the young man was no more than eighteen, and Odessa is inclined to agree with him. An unseasoned eighteen in some regards, but in others -- she casts her eyes over his sword belt, now hanging from the footboard, and his armor, now laid out on the floor. Too young, like so many of the Imperial Soldiers Odessa’s known. Too young, and just the right age for the men in power to exploit.

He groans and clutches the pillow closer. He’ll probably wake up again soon, this time for good, and Odessa resettles herself on the corner of the bed, gives him more room. His eyes open blearily around a thick crust, and Odessa’s not surprised to find them as wide and blue as his cloak.

“-- You’re not Viktor,” he says.

“No,” she agrees, “I’m not. Good morning.”

“Good morning.” He breathes and hauls himself up from the mattress a little. It looks painful. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m in a state. I’ve never drunk that much before.”

She smiles, but softly, to show sympathy rather than amusement. “It’s quite all right. I’d ask how you’re feeling, but I think I can guess.”

He laughs through grit teeth, but the rising color in his cheeks is probably as much embarrassment as hangover. “There’s, um, some medicine in my pouch -- it’s still here, right?”

“Of course,” she says, and fetches it from the footboard. He checks the sword before he even touches the belt-pouches. The blade is well-oiled and recently sharpened. Definitely a more seasoned fighter than he looks, then.

“Thank you,” he says, squinting to rifle through his things until he comes up with a medicine bottle.

“Water?”

“Sure.”

There’s a pitcher on the stand near the door. Odessa figures that if Viktor didn’t mind yielding the young man his bed, he won’t mind yielding his water glass either, so she fills his and brings it to the bed.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, having some trouble with the cork on the medicine. “I should be more careful, and I shouldn’t impose on you, and I’ll definitely settle as much as I can of the bill for the room. I didn’t take your bed, did I?”

“No, you took Viktor’s.” Before he can apologize again, she asks, “You aren’t from Sarady, are you?” She knows the answer, but it’s as good an introductory question as any.

The cork snaps off the bottle. “No. Are you?”

“No, but I grew up near here. Where are you from?”

“A village south of Lorimar.” He throws back the medicine and drinks it in one gulp. That can’t be good for his headache. “Warrior’s Village.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Odessa says. “Why did you leave?”

“Not on my journey. Well, not really. I mean, that’s why I left, but the more I think about it the less I want to go back. Though that could just be the headache. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t lay this all on you, I already gave Viktor an earful last night. It’s probably good that I passed out.”

It is, but not for the reasons he thinks. “I don’t mind. I’m quite curious, actually.”

“It’s just as bad out here as it is there,” he says, once he’s all but drained the glass of water. “The same old men, the same cycle. They talk about tradition and rules and keeping the past alive, but it’s not a past any of them remember and it’s not the path that all the young people want to take. But the old men use the young men, they live vicariously through us because they don’t have the kind of power they need, and we don’t know what kind of power we want except for what they tell us.” 

The glass trembles in his hand, and for a moment Odessa fears he’ll shatter it. She keeps holding her breath, though, because if she doesn’t she’ll interrupt him and spill all the secrets of the Liberation Army right there, and it isn’t the right time yet. But oh, almost. Hungover or no, his voice sparks and bristles with the kind of frustrated energy she knows all too well.

“And it’s the same out here. And I still can’t go back, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, because I’m not a man. Because they decide what a man is.”

Yes. _Yes_. He could be talking about the Empire as easily as his home village -- but he’s not, and Odessa needs to tread carefully or she’ll seem as awful and grasping as the men he’s running from.

“What _have_ you noticed out here?” she asks.

He folds his fingers around the glass, stares into it like he’s searching for his reflection. “I’ve been out here for about eight months,” he says. “Every town I come to, there’s a leader or an imperial commander who won’t do anything about the bandits shaking his people down, of conscripting all the young people into service. I got poisoned on the way here, that was new -- and when I told the mayor about it he said it was Kirov’s problem, if I wanted to dispute it I should go back to Kirov. I’d just climbed the damn mountain. I said it was his problem. He threw me out of his office. I shouldn’t have taken on all four of his guards, but --” He stops. “It’s nothing. It’s just how things are out here. I get it. Once I get back down the mountain I’ll try my luck in Jowston.”

He’s too young to accept defeat so easily. “What will you look for in Jowston?”

“I don’t know.” He laughs, as bitter as before. “I don’t even know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Flik.”

The name suits him. She edges closer to him on the bed, but not so closely that he’ll jump, she hopes. “What kind of a man do you want to be, Flik?”

“You know, I don’t know that either.” He smiles, brilliant and far too drawn for a face as young as his. “And I might even be the kind of man they want me to be in the end, but even if that’s the destination I want to find my own way there.”

“Of course,” she says, softly as she can, and sets her hand down in the space between them. “And you should be free to decide. But there isn’t much in the way of freedom these days, is there?”

“Not from what I’ve seen.” He peers over the rim of the glass at her hand, and his fingers twitch but stay where they are. “Are you saying I should stop looking?”

Odessa shakes her head, forces herself to keep quiet; the innkeeper’s sympathetic to her cause, but that’s no guarantee that his patrons are, and walls only block so much. “Not at all,” she says. “But I am saying that looking might not be enough.” She glances at his sword again, to make her meaning plain.

He lowers his hand from the glass to the hilt of his sword, and says nothing.

“Have you heard of the Liberation Army?” she asks, her voice just barely above a whisper.

He nods.

“My name is Odessa Silverberg,” she says. “I’m the Liberation Army’s commander.”

And if she’s right about him, she should have his full attention now.

He stares into her eyes, and shapes words that don’t quite take voice. “You’re --” he tries, and then “-- oh,” and “-- I,” and his cheeks flush even brighter than they did last night from drink. “You’re recruiting me,” he says, when he manages to put the words together.

“I see the same kind of spirit in you that led me to start the Liberation Army in the first place.” She brushes the palm over the back of his hand but doesn’t quite hold it. Not yet. “You see what’s happening in this country, and you _care_. You care enough to break away from the unjust traditions in your village, and you care enough to challenge -- four guards, was it?” She smiles. “I wish I knew more people like you. No, I _need_ more people like you.”

Whether she’s holding his hand or not, she’s close enough to feel the tremor that rushes through it, like a static charge. 

“I need to think about that,” he says. “How much longer do you have the room?”

“Only for another six hours, I’m afraid,” she says. “But we’ll be near Sarady for a while longer, and when you’ve thought it over, find Viktor and he’ll bring you to our base. He’s hard to miss.”

Flik laughs. It’s such an open sound. “And if I tell him I’m not ready?”

“Then he’ll find something to do, I’m sure.” She laughs, too, but not for long. “But I do hope you’ll let us know.”

He will. He has to. Once his hangover’s faded and his head’s cleared, he’ll have no choice but to see. 

“I should still settle the bill for the room before you go.”

“There’s no need.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. Please. I’ll feel a little better about what happened if you let me, and besides -- you need the funds.”

“You need them, too, I imagine.”

“Not as much as you.”

This is getting silly. “If you insist,” she says, and names a figure about thirty potch lower than what his share of the room would really cost. “But don’t feel guilty or ashamed about what happened.” She squeezes his hand, however briefly, and when his hand tightens under hers, her pulse jumps. “I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.”

By the flush rising up all the way to his bright blue eyes, she knows it won’t be the last time they meet, whether his answer is yes or no.

***

Humphrey’s not one to say much, but right now he plain doesn’t have much to say. Odessa is at the table, looking over the map to back east, and there’s not much for Humphrey to do other than watch the door and wait for Viktor.

Viktor’s late. It’s probably nothing, but too many people in Sarady have been flying the colors for Humphrey not to be cautious.

Odessa glances up from the map. “I told him to settle up at the inn,” she tells Humphrey, reading him like a book, like always.

Humphrey nods and relaxes a little, his back to the wall, but doesn’t stop watching to door.

Viktor knows how to walk two ways, one you hear and one you don’t. But in Humphrey’s experience with the man, he doesn’t know how to imitate two sets of footsteps at once, so when Humphrey hears two people approaching he’s less inclined to relax.

“Look what I found,” Viktor says, halfway through swinging open the door like this is a tavern, not a private hideout in a public house. He gestures ostentatiously at the young man just behind him, a mousy and wiry thing with a light sword and the armor to reinforce the speed he probably relies on to wield it.

Odessa straightens -- not the stiff-backed officer’s reception that Humphrey remembers too well, but like her whole body’s perking up. Excitement, maybe. “Hello, Flik,” she says. “I’m so glad you came. Please, sit down.”

Flik nods, and chooses a seat at the table that affords him a view of the door, and keeps his sword out of the table’s bounds. He’s not just a kid. Good. Humphrey respects that, figures he’ll let the kid know as much, and offers a long nod. Flik returns it. Also good.

“Have you thought about what we discussed?” Odessa asks.

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” Flik says.

She smiles. “And will you join us?”

He smiles back. “I think I already have.”

Looking at that smile, Humphrey knows exactly what Odessa and Viktor saw in this kid. And if Humphrey’s following it in those two, he can follow it in Flik.

“Welcome,” Humphrey says.

“Humphrey,” Odessa explains, with just one wave of introduction between the two of them.

Flik only looks startled for an appreciable second. “-- Thanks,” he says, and that’s all it takes.

***

“She told him _what_?” Sanchez asks, to clarify. “Mere minutes after she met him?”

“Odessa’s got a way with this,” Viktor says, and as far as Sanchez is concerned he’s as thick and incorrigible as ever. “And it doesn’t matter. He’s here, now. Take advantage of it, I say. If the meat’s gone bad, deal with the indigestion later.”

“Indeed,” Sanchez says, and swallows a retort about not yet having developed a taste for Viktor’s metaphors. Really, he should be thankful that Lady Odessa has apparently decided to turn her Liberation Army into a refuge for beardless and untested youths, all things considered, but he must confess some disappointment nevertheless. He pours himself a glass of wine. “Well, we have to take what we can get.”

Viktor shrugs, dusts his shoulder off. “He held his own on the way here. That’s about as much as we can ask of a soldier. More, maybe. And he’s a good kid. I like him.”

“Clearly, so did Odessa.”

“Hey, she likes us too, so I say let’s trust her judgment, huh?” He laughs and pounds Sanchez between the shoulderblades in what he doubtless thinks is a display of manly camaraderie but feels much more like an assault. Thank goodness Sanchez had already swallowed his sip of wine.

Before Sanchez can say, _fine, either way, no one asks me,_ the Commander in question makes her way into the room, the contentious young man on her heels and Humphrey behind.

“Good, everyone’s here,” Odessa says, stands aside. “Sanchez, I’d like you to meet Flik. Flik, Sanchez handles our finances and quarter.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sanchez says, and offers a hand so the poor brat will know what to do.

He’s surprised when Flik’s handshake isn’t childishly eager or compensatorily forceful. “Thanks for having me,” he says, and gives Sanchez’s hand a firm grasp and a single shake.

Odessa _does_ know how to pick them out, it seems.

Damn.

“How did you find him?” Sanchez asks, of no one in particular but hoping for Odessa’s answer.

“He threw up on my shirt,” Viktor says, his grin wide.

“And you haven’t washed it since,” says Flik. Viktor, still grinning, sweeps Flik into a headlock and ruffles his thick mop of hair. Flik yelps and tries to throw him off, but after a few fruitless struggles he laughs, too. Humphrey glances at Sanchez, cocks his head as if to say _you know Viktor_ , and yes, Sanchez does, but Viktor’s fast friends don’t always make it to the high command.

“Save it for later, boys,” Odessa says as she sits down at the head of the table. “Sanchez, you have the map for the Lorimar region?”

He rolls it out on the table, and Odessa leans over it, surveying the small eastern island in particular. “Our scouts report that the Milich Oppenheimer’s branch of the Imperial Army is practicing maneuvers in the eastern part of the region, and that Shulen’s navy is offering them support from the lake. It’s Milich, so we _know_ there’s some kind of new weapon --”

“-- and not the kind we want to let them break out on us,” Viktor says. “Humphrey, your contacts in the army got anything?”

Humphrey shakes his head, no, and Sanchez says nothing because they didn’t ask him.

“We need a small reconnaissance team.” Odessa traces a meandering path across the map with her finger, frowning. “But it’s going to be dangerous. They’ll have to get much close to General Oppenheimer’s army than our scouts did.”

“You’ll need more than a small team,” Flik says. “We can’t approach from downriver.”

Odessa blinks. “Why not?”

Flik gives Sanchez a quick _do you mind?_ look, so Sanchez steps aside from his place at the map’s edge and points out something the Empire would have much preferred for Sanchez to keep hidden. “There are rapids in the southwest section of the river, which means we’d have to approach the island from the Great Forest region in the east instead. They’re even more well-protected than our scouts probably reported.”

As dangerous as the rest of that statement was, the _our_ in _our scouts_ is what gives Sanchez the most pause.

“It sounds like you know the area well.” Odessa nudges the map closer to Flik. “How do you recommend we get past them?”

“Well, I don’t know the Great Forest as well as Lorimar, but I do know they can’t put troops there or patrol the area because the woods are so thick. If we came in from over here,” he points, “we’d have to risk crossing the river at a wider ford, but at least they wouldn’t be expecting it.”

“I know some folks in that forest,” Viktor says. “They might give us a few fishing boats. We’d have to trade with the Imperials, but I don’t mind buying them lunch now if it means we can stiff ‘em later.”

Odessa smiles, some of the lines around her mouth easing. “Fair enough. Flik, will you lead the team?”

Sanchez coughs. “With all due respect, Odessa, isn’t it a little early to entrust him with a mission?”

“Perhaps. But he knows the area --”

“No, Sanchez is right,” Flik says. “I know Lorimar, but I don’t think whatever team you send will trust me right off the bat. And Viktor’s the one with friends in the forest. I’ll definitely go, but I think someone else should be in charge.”

Odessa inclines her head, half-closes her eyes and allows herself a moment. “You’re right,” she says, and Sanchez supposes he should make an effort to look pleased. “Viktor, I’m giving you command. Take Flik with you, and choose the rest carefully.”

“You got it,” Viktor says, and Flik just nods his head. But when Flik looks up and catches Sanchez’s eye, he adds a quiet “Thank you.”

Sanchez thinks, again, quite clearly, _Damn._

***

Odessa knew, of course, that they could only impose on the owner of the house for so long, and she’s slept in worse places than the cave they’ve relocated to on the outskirts of town. Well, she’s slept in worse places since founding the Liberation Army, at least, but after nights of layering enough furs beneath her to keep the rocky floor from mangling her back, she does miss beds. And baths, if she’s being honest with herself. And pastries -- what she wouldn’t do for a warm flaky bun some mornings, dripping with glaze and smelling of cinnamon. 

But she’s chosen this life, so she keeps those thoughts private. 

She scans over the inventories for the third time this week. Sanchez tells her that it’s his job to worry over such things, and true, he manages to scavenge whatever they need from fates know where, and he can manipulate numbers in a way that would make even her relatives envious. Still, she ought to know what she has on hand. The Army is running low on arrows, which isn’t as difficult to remedy as it could be, and its stockpiles of iron are nearly depleted, which she needs to address within the week. Particularly given the shape most of the soldiers’ swords and shields are in; thank goodness they haven’t met the Imperial Army head-on yet, or their arms would shatter on contact with Imperial steel. 

Her lamp’s guttering. Can she spare the oil to keep it lit? She isn’t sure, and adds it to the list of supplies she needs to procure.

“Odessa?” Flik knocks on the doorjamb. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” she says, and looks up from-- “-- Flik, what’s that?”

He adjusts the rather large dead bird in his arms. “It’s a Caynasal,” he says, with the kind of hopeful, almost sheepish expression that Odessa’s seen on cats that show off their captured prey with triumph. “Sanchez said you were low on arrows.”

“ -- Ah,” she says. “That’s -- ” There _is_ a word for it, one that isn’t patronizing, but Odessa can’t think of what it is. “Impressive?” she guesses, and ventures a smile. It _is_ a sizable bird, after all, and she didn’t know he had any bowmanship to speak of. Unless he managed to bring it down with his sword. She covers her mouth to hide her widening smile as she imagines Flik racing across the plains after the bird, grasping it by the leg and wrestling it to the ground before it could fly out of his grasp.

His cheeks color. “There’s a story in Warrior’s Village. Um, I won’t tell the whole thing, it goes on for a while. But Eilina, the wife of Klift the Crusader, used to fletch her arrows with Caynasal feathers. So they always fly true. I mean, in the legend.”

Heat spreads through her cheeks, too. She hopes it doesn’t show too much. “Oh. Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”

“And, well,” he goes on. “I don’t think they’re bad to eat. So after we pluck it, I guess that’s...dinner.”

The bird slips a little out of his grasp, and he adjusts it again, holds it by the neck and an arm wrapped around its midsection like it’s some kind of limp musical instrument. He’s cleaned the wound, but the bird still has its head, lolling toward the floor. Odessa almost laughs, but she’d have to explain why if she did, so she stifles it.

“I have been getting tired of stew,” she says. “And the one we’ve been eating is more broth than substance now, I think.”

His smile brightens, but his cheeks are still pink when he sets the bird down on the table. “Do you mind if I help? I mean, if I’m not interrupting you.”

“Not at all. I really should stop looking at the same lists over and over again.”

When Flik sits beside her, he also moves the oil lamp out of the way and hauls the bird into its place. If it weren’t so ridiculous and, frankly, adorable, the shadows around the flattened feathers might be frightening. “I wish I could help with more than just the plucking. You have so much to take care of.”

Odessa pries a handful of the bird’s tailfeathers loose and shakes her head. “You’ve already been helpful, and the longer you’re with us, the more you’ll learn how to do.” She twirls one of the feathers between her fingertips, watches the lamplight cascade down its shaft. “Goodness knows I’ve learned enough. I never had to pluck birds before I founded the Army.”

“So I’ll learn,” he agrees, and gets to work on his side of the bird.

The silence isn’t quite comfortable, but it’s companionable, and the lamplight settles against the walls of the room. Odessa falls into a rhythm, sorting the feathers and setting the harder ones aside, and Flik follows her example. He’s courteous about where his hands are, she notices. They don’t brush against hers, not even accidentally.

“We should save the down,” he says.

“To sell?” Odessa can think of a few merchants who might pay for it, and can’t help remembering pillows and warm duvets.

Flik shakes his head. “No. Never mind. Um. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Unless you mean we should save it for the reserves,” she says. “We do need more bedrolls, you’re right, but there are more practical materials, even if this is, well, free.”

His cheeks almost glow brighter than the lamp does. “No, I meant -- ah. I thought you might like to sleep on it.”

Goodness, he can’t even meet her eyes right now; he picks at the vanes of the feathers in his lap and stares at his shoes with such effort that Odessa wonders if he’ll be able to unfix his eyes again. She clamps her lips shut, because laughing would be too cruel, and he’s already drooping the way the bird did when he held it by the neck.

“That’s very sweet of you,” she says, “but I don’t think it would be practical to keep a feather-bed in a cave.”

He shapes his mouth to say something, maybe contradict her, but turns his face away before any words come out, and resumes prying feathers out of the bird. The skin squeaks.

Odessa chuckles and tickles the bird’s beak with one of its tailfeathers, and finally, Flik lifts his head, a smile starting to peek out.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, but at least there’s some laughter in it as well. “I’m just -- thankful. For you. And I think I have a better idea what kind of man I want to be.”

“What kind of man is that?”

There’s still a twinge of red across his cheeks, but his eyes are clear, assertive on hers. “The kind someone like you could respect.”

“I’d like that,” Odessa says. “And I think you’re well on your way.”

*******


End file.
